Microsoft filled the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica’s Auditorium with Jamaican non-government organisations (NGO) on Thursday and then provided free information technology guidance to assist with better management of their offices.

The educational effort, titled, “Technology for Change”, was spearheaded by the global technology company, which was assisted by Discount Computer Services (DCS) in an effort to provide digital transformation to the NGOs through the donation of free cloud solutions.

According to Laycya Holmes, Microsoft’s Country Manager of Jamaica, the effort was also upon the prompting of the government, which had urged the company to help the NOGs in digitally transforming their operations with the impact the technology will provide.

Holmes said, “the main reason that we decided to host this, is because we realised that people didn’t know about this benefit. Microsoft has a huge philanthropic arm, that has a section that focuses on non-profit organisations and the reality is that we realised that most NGOs were buying technology and we actually have a segment of our technology that is offered for free for NGOs.”

The NGOs were enlightened on Microsoft Office 365 Non-Profit Business Essentials, Microsfot Exchange, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft SharePoint, Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams.

These softwares will help the NGOs by providing a suite of storage communications and documenting applications necessary to make their work simpler.

This, according to Microsoft, will boost the US$36.9 in software, cash and cloud solutions that it has provided to NGOs in the Caribbean. Holmes said it will be ongoing.

“This is the beginning of what we are doing,” she said. “We had discussions with government where they asked us to do more and we are really looking at doing more and this is the beginning and the continuation of the types of events that we will be doing to help these organisations.”

Mildred Crawford, affiliated with the Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers, raises her concerns to the speaker.

The country manager attributed the Petroleum Corporation’s Auditorium being full, to the NGOs showing interest in what was being offered.

She said, “a room doesn’t fill because you simply make it fill up. It fills up because persons want to understand, they want to know. And so in partnering with Discount Computer Services, they really got the word out there and we are really excited to have this engagement and the dialogue that we need to be having with the NGOs across the country.”

Director of DCS Limited, Almando Cox, who joined Holmes in advising the NGOs, agrees.

Cox said, “My experience with one particular client sparked my interest in NGOs. I watched their selfless commitment to improving lives. This made me want to do my part to make an impact by providing the technology needed to improve their day-to-day functioning and help them to extend their services to more people.”

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